by O. E. Boroni
Then they all turned towards me. They were all looking at me like I was insane, and before I knew it, the boy that had been beside him but had been saved by his grip on the handrail, shoved me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he barked, and came after me even as I stumbled, and then fell to the ground from the impact of his shove. Turning around, I immediately tried to get up but before I could lift myself up from my knees, he reached me and with the side of his feet, cleared my legs off the ground. The sweep was more with the intention to keep me on the ground and humiliate me than to actually hurt me, but it didn’t stop my jaw, elbows and knees from being knocked against the linoleum floor.
I turned to see that the rest of them had gathered and were watching me, with barely controlled anger on their faces. However, when the fear really gripped my heart was when the one that I had pushed down the stairs finally emerged, and started to come towards me with eyes ablaze with fury. One of his friends held his hand and tried talking him out of whatever he wanted to do but he refused, and continued walking towards me, his eyes fixated on mine.
“What’s happening?” I heard someone roar, and they all simultaneously turned. I looked up to see the blue-eyed boy staring at us with shock on his face. Then he recovered and hurried past them, towards me.
“Are you okay?” he asked when he reached me. I nodded, and tried to push him away as he held my arms to pull me up, so that I could get up on my own.
“What are you still doing here?” he yelled at the boys, and immediately, they started to turn away and head down the stairs. Only the red-haired one stopped, and making sure my eyes met his glare, he raised his arm up to show me the picture of my mom that he had in his hand. With a dirty smile on his face, he lifted his second hand to the edge of the picture and ripped it, straight through the middle.
I gasped, tears filling my eyes again as I watched the pieces drift to the floor. He was still going to take a moment or two to gloat, but when the blue-eyed boy turned and made to walk towards him, he fled. Hurrying over to the ripped pieces, I bent down to retrieve them and tried to see if it would ever be possible for me to piece them back together.
“Why did you let them go?” I yelled at the blue-eyed boy, my insides twisting with pain. At that moment I felt so alone, and cold, and the huge emptiness inside of me felt like it had widened out even more.
Rising to my feet, I walked over to him and shoved him but it only moved him back a few steps. Wiping the tears off my face, I turned to pick my backpack up from the floor, and with one last glare at him, walked out of the hallway.
« CHAPTER 4 »
The incident set the pace for my entire weekend, and it was horrible. I’d returned to my room and spent the rest of the Friday in bed and bitter. Soon, Saturday rolled by and it was another nightmare because it was my birthday. And each time it came around, the feeling that I had somehow cheated my mum out of her life only to have one more year added to mine rose up, and tormented me. My cramps had also come up at varying times throughout the weekend, but it had always passed as quickly as it came and for that, I had been grateful.
To take my mind away from it all, I’d stayed in bed with a Julie Garwood novel and finished it just before dinner. Olivia constantly had friends over so I also had to put up with all the racket they made, until I started wishing I could just collapse again, and remain unconscious for a while so that I could get away from everything.
The dejection continued all weekend long but by the time Monday rolled by, I didn’t feel so heavy hearted anymore. However, I was in class during third period when Mr. Barron called my name. I'd been lost in thought about the novel I’d read over the weekend so I didn't hear him the first time. But the sharp bark that followed had been more than enough to call me to attention.
He waited until I reached his table to relay the message, and I appreciated it immensely when he did it in a lower tone than he usually spoke in. The entire class was watching with ardent curiosity.
"The headmaster wants you in his office," he said, and must have seen the fear that flashed across my eyes because he asked. "Is everything alright?"
It was said in a tone that relayed genuine concern instead of intrusive curiosity, so I shrugged my shoulders instead of just ignoring the question.
"It'll be fine," he said, and I acknowledged his condolence with a nod.
The lady who had come to deliver the message smiled automatically at me before leading me to the office, which was located in the administrative tower.
The headmaster’s waiting room was empty when I arrived, but when the entrance doors swung open a few minutes later, I looked up to see one of the boys that had attacked me on Friday; the dark-haired one that had pushed me to the floor. I only noticed that he was limping slightly when the other three filed in behind him.
The woman that had come to get me came in last, and then closed the door behind her. Again, she smiled at me when she saw my puzzled look, but offered no explanation. All four boys took their seats in front of me so I turned away and ignored them. I did notice that the red-haired boy that had torn up my mother’s picture was bruised on the side of his face, and had a bandage across his nose. What had happened afterwards to get them this way? I wondered.
My answer came a few minutes later when the door opened again, and the blue-eyed boy walked in. As soon as he saw me, he stopped in his tracks. I held his stare since I had no idea what the problem was, and assumed he had something to say. Instead, his eyebrows drew together to form a small frown on his forehead, and the action convinced me that I was the last person he wanted to see today. Offended, but too confused to look away, I watched him take a seat at the extreme edge of the room, away from all of us.
Everyone was quiet, but since I couldn't control myself I continued to sneak peeks at the boy as he plugged in his earphones, effectively blocking the rest of us out.
The door that led to the headmaster’s office eventually opened, and a bright woman with streaks of white running through her hair, and a pair of piercing brown eyes poked her head through.
"Mr. Deacon will see you all now,” she said, and the boys rose to their feet. Their groans, low but unified enough to sound their grief, followed them as they filed in though the open door. The blue-eyed boy stood to his feet also and without a glance at me as he passed, went with them. I started to rise then but the woman shook her head.
"Just hold on dear, we’ll be with you soon," she said, and shut the door behind her. I stared at it, and tried to slow my breathing but failed. I was nervous, because although the incident hadn’t entirely been my fault, I had inflamed it by pushing the boy down the stairs. Rising to my feet, I stood and paced around the huge reception, ignoring the occasional glance from the receptionist. Ten minutes later the door clicked open again and I was told to come in.
Immediately I rushed forward, but stopped just at the door until the headmaster invited me to stand in front of his gigantic oak desk, a few feet away from the others. In all my years here this was the first time that I had ever been in Mr. Deacon’s office, and as I took a quick glance at the huge, and unwelcoming room, I hoped with all my heart that it would be my last.
"Miss Baker," he called, and I turned my head to meet the gaze of the tall man I'd only see from afar in my three years at Lancaster Academy. He took off his glasses before he started speaking to me, and that instantly made him look less aged and intimidating.
"Miss Baker," he called again, and I focused my attention on the hardness that lined the corners of his mouth. "Mr. Roque tells me that his assault of these boys was because they attacked you after school hours on Friday. Is this true?"
I couldn't resist a glance at the blue-eyed boy, whose surname I had now found out was Roque. He was watching me, but moved his eyes away after a few seconds. I returned mine to the headmaster.
"Yes," I said.
He leaned back against his chair and asked. “Could you narrate the incident to me?"
I nodded, and wen
t through what had happened as accurately as I could. Only when I stopped did I realize that my heart was pounding in my chest, and automatically, I turned again to gaze at the boy. He was watching me.
"Did Mr. Roque tell you anything after this?" he asked.
I shook my head. "He didn't. I haven’t seen him since last Friday." I turned to the other boys. "I haven’t seen any of them."
“Well based on what they've all told me, that seems to be accurate. Mr Roque here took it upon himself to, as you can see, thrash these two over here. But their houseparent intervened and put a stop to it. Quite frankly, I am gravely disappointed in all of you, and even you Miss Baker because although you were provoked, a lot more damage could have been done by pushing Clinton down the stairs.”
“Mr Roque has also been considered to replace the current Pendle House prefect, since we are not certain that he would be returning this term, but this incident has definitely disqualified him.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise as I turned to look at the boy, but he seemed unmoved. In fact, it looked as if the anger I had previously sensed from his gaze was cooling off and in its stead, his usual cool mask of quiet detachment was replacing it. Still, I felt horrible, like I had somehow cost him this. The slight pain around the corners of my stomach intensified, but I stifled it enough to speak.
"Excuse me, but he didn’t do anything wrong. He was just trying to help me," I said, and for about a second, the room became completely silent.
Mr. Deacon was the first to speak. "I understand that," he said. "But he went too far."
"But I ..." I started to argue, but in a solid voice the boy said, "Let it go."
I ignored it.
"Who knows what else they would have done?" I proceeded to argue. "He did the right thing."
"I'm not disputing that," the headmaster said. "But he should have reported the incident immediately after, instead of taking matters into his own hands. This is a grave issue – harassment is not tolerated here and neither is bullying. These boys obviously fear him enough to have let go the minute he came around, so he should have reigned in his temper. If their houseparent hadn't intervened, one could only imagine how much more damage he could have caused."
"But Mr. Dea –"
"Nora let it go!" the boy repeated and this time I listened, and kept my mouth shut. Another cramp twisted the lower part of my abdomen and I briefly closed my eyes to stomach the pain.
"Are you alright?" the headmaster asked. I nodded and although he didn't look like he believed me, he didn’t force the issue. He turned to the battered boys.
“The appropriate punishment is to suspend all of you, but for now I need you all to leave. I’ll send my decision across as soon as it’s made.” And with that, we all filed out of the room.
The cramps worsened as I walked slowly out of the office, and headed back to my class. As I walked along, the pain heightened to such an unbearable degree that I had to stop and bend over. I refrained from groaning out loud and had to squeeze my eyes shut to battle the pain. I could barely hear anything, and as I tried to regain my composure, I thought back to what I had eaten that would have caused it to get this bad.
I figured the yoghurt I’d had in the morning for breakfast had something to do with it, because although I sometimes felt slightly discomforted during my cycles, there had only been a handful of times when it had gotten so bad.
Another spasm hit and this time I doubled over, more than grateful that the hallway was empty. Eventually crouching down so that I could stomach the pain, I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle any unexpected cries, and tried desperately to breathe as deeply as I could. Somehow it worsened, and I was just about to lie on the floor and fold into a ball until it passed, when a pair of arms touched my shoulders.
"Are you alright?" I was asked, but I was in too much pain to respond. The arms retreated and then came around me again to try to lift me up. I slapped them away.
"Ow!" I heard the small complaint, but I was too occupied to care. The pain was reducing now and slowly, my breathing was returning to normal. Inclining my head a little to the side, I turned to see who it was and closed my eyes again when I realized it was him. I felt so ashamed that yet again, there was a reason to be thoroughly embarrassed in front of him.
"I'm fine," I said as I started to get up, but found myself struggling. He tried to assist me and again, I made to slap his hand away. He managed to pull it out of the way so my hand met with thin air.
"Would you stop that?" he said, and I sensed him straighten to his full height.
"I'm fine," I repeated in an almost whisper, and tried again to get up on my own. I eventually did, with my palms stretched out on the floor for support, but just as soon as my knees began to straighten, another awful cramp struck and I was back to my knees. I was thankfully saved from falling headfirst onto the floor when his hands shot out to catch me. Before I knew what was happening, I was in his arms, and being carried to the infirmary.
I vehemently wanted to protest, and was even consciously gearing myself up for it, but then I suddenly didn't care. Wrapping my hands around his neck to make my weight lighter, I clung to him, my breathing louder than I would have liked.
In no time at all, I was being lowered onto a bed and almost immediately, I heard the familiar voice of the nurse that had treated me the last time, enter the room.
"What's wrong with her?" she asked as she headed over. I began to think about how I'd have to ask him to get out so that I could explain, but to my utter surprise and embarrassment, he explained.
"Menstrual cramps," he said, and I felt my face turn a bright red.
"I'm fine." I said, but the nurse gave me an incensed look.
"Didn’t I just see him carrying you in here?" she asked. Then she turned around and headed back into her office. She came out with a file a few minutes later, along with a small tray. She told me to sit up, which I did, and I collected the tray from her to down the two pills in the small plastic cup.
My back was turned to him since I was still too embarrassed by everything that had happened over the past few days. God, I wished he would just leave.
"Stay until lunch to rest- you should feel much better by then," she said, and then she turned to the boy, "Thanks for bringing her in again. Do you have any classes now?"
"Yeah, I do," he answered.
"Well, you can just get to it then. You can come by for lunch to check up, and maybe bring a sandwich for her."
"Okay," he said, and I heard him start walking around the bed. He was soon in my line of vision and I watched, a tumult of emotions filling me, as he walked out of the infirmary without so much as a glance back. I laid back down right after he'd left, but found myself unable to sleep. Some of it was due to the lingering pain and discomfort around my midriff, while the rest, which was actually most of it, had to do with him.
I understood that he didn't particularly care about me but for some reason, a nagging sense of responsibility pushed him to help. But still, it bothered me that all of this, whatever it was, would soon end. There was only so much rescuing that one could need and so far, I suspected that I'd gone through my spell of incidents for the entire year in one weekend. The fact saddened me that afterwards – and that was if he actually bothered to come back to check on me – I might never get to talk to him again. The school was surely big enough to not bump into people since he'd obviously already been here for who knew how long, and last Friday had been the first time I’d seen him.
I knew that I shouldn't have been concerned about any of this, but that was exactly what kept me up. I was concerned and I didn’t know how not to be.
Lunch came, and when I realized as I woke up that the pain had dissipated, I felt incredibly relieved. Then I remembered my previous concern that the boy wouldn’t stop by again, and since no one had awakened me, I realized that it had come true. I began to feel a sort of gloom that I definitely wasn't ready for, so I kept my eyes shut and tried to push it all away befo
re I had to head back to class.
"Are you ever planning on waking up?" I suddenly heard him say. My eyes flew open with shock, but even as a rush of confused excitement filled me, I managed to remain still. I also didn’t want the emotions to show when I turned, so I took a deep breath and then gently sat up.
I pushed my hair away from my face and took him in. He was seated on the chair by my bedside with a small book open on his lap.
“Hi. You came,” I said, my voice sounding annoyingly breathy, like I’d actually wanted him to. It made me cringe inwardly, so I cleared my throat and tried to sound like a normal person. "Um, I mean, I thought, you had like … other stuff to do."
He watched me for a few seconds. “I do have other stuff to do,” he said, then turned to grab a brown paper bag from the table. I briefly shut my eyes at the complete fool that I seemed to be making out of myself, but reopened them just before he turned and gave the bag to me.
"Thanks," I said, suddenly uncomfortable with accepting it. "I'll pay you back but I don't have my wallet here. How much was it?"
"Don't worry about it," he dismissed, and returned to his book. I took a peek in the bag and saw that he'd gotten me what appeared to be a baguette, bottled water and a huge chocolate chip muffin. I felt the need to insist on a reimbursement.
"Thanks, really, I appreciate it, but this is the second time in a row you’re buying me food. I just can't accept that."
He looked up from the book with what seemed like amusement in his eyes. “I thought I owed you the first time?"
"Well yeah, you did, that's why I'll pay you for just this time around."
"Don't worry about it," he said, and again returned to his book, but I still insisted.
"I will worry, that's why I have to pay you back."
He raised his head again. He started to say something but seemed to change his mind at the last moment. He asked. “And if I don't accept it?"
